iPhone developer slams Apple over App Store yank

30.07.2009
The CEO of the company whose Google Voice-related application was recently yanked by Apple from the iPhone's App Store is hopping mad.

Kevin Duerr, the chief executive of Durham, N.C.-based Riverturn Inc., took Apple out to the woodshed over its refusal to explain why his VoiceCentral application was pulled from the App Store earlier this week. "I'm a self-admitted Apple 'fanboi', but this knocked me to the core," said Duerr in an interview today.

In a blog entry posted Tuesday, Duerr outlined his conversation with an Apple representative, identified only as "Richard," who had called to inform Riverturn that VoiceCentral, an application that let iPhone users log in to the Google Voice service, had been removed from the App Store.

During that conversation, Richard told Duerr that VoiceCentral was being dropped because it "duplicates features of the iPhone," but repeatedly refused to answer Duerr's questions, including what his developers could change to meet Apple's requirements.

"Can you tell me what portions of the app were duplicate features?" Duerr asked.

"I can't go into granular detail," Richard replied.